


Lab Rats

by Anonymous0003



Series: Adaptions and Affections [2]
Category: Danny Phantom, Justice League - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Babysitting, Bonding, Brotherly Bonding, Conversations, Danny Fenton Needs A Hug, Dissection, Gen, Hurt Danny Fenton, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kon-El | Conner Kent Feels, Kon-El | Conner Kent Needs a Hug, Medical Experimentation, Mild Hurt/Comfort, POV Kon-El | Conner Kent, POV Third Person Limited, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Sensory Deprivation, Torture, Trauma, Unethical Experimentation, kind of, not the sexy kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:26:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29370000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous0003/pseuds/Anonymous0003
Summary: Conner isn't sure why he agreed to babysit the youngest Bat. He barely knows the kid. But here he is, practically spilling his guts to an eleven year old.This is an unrelated fic, however I strongly recommend reading A New Beginning as there are references and situations that won't make much sense without the context of that story.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: Adaptions and Affections [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2157411
Comments: 2
Kudos: 62





	Lab Rats

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sheepheadfred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheepheadfred/gifts).



> I am fully aware that this is an inaccurate representation of what Conner went through at Cadmus. I am aware that he didn't fight back, and that his tests weren't like I've describe, and that he has the knowledge of any sixteen year old. I changed that because I needed it to fit better with my story, so you could call this an AU. If you don't like that, then don't read it. Simple as that. As always, I am open to constructive criticism but I do not tolerate disrespectful or needlessly cruel comments.
> 
> I give a full disclaimer, neither these characters or fandoms are mine to own or profit from. I own only the narrative and the previous story's narrative of which this is connected to. I also borrowed some ideas from the book The Institute by Stephen King when I came up with the exact experience Danny had, but that is not exactly from the book, I did change it.
> 
> There is graphic descriptions of torture, both physical and mental, as well as situations where people and children are viewed as expendable objects so be advised and read with discretion.
> 
> This idea was given to me by sheepheadfred who said they wondered what it would be like if Conner found out that Danny was also intended to be a weapon. If anyone else would like to see something in particular then just leave a comment on any of the stories in this series.

Conner wasn't sure why he agreed to watch the kid. He barely knew him, hell, he barely knew anyone considering he didn't like to talk to anyone much outside of Megan. Sure, he got along with them better than he had when they first found him, but it was just really hard to talk to them. They didn't get it, what it was like to be just a copy of someone else. He was nothing but a back up to Superman, the man that gave him life but wants nothing to do with him. It was hard to relate to others when you have that constantly hanging over your head, and it's not like he has anything in common with them. So it all just made him feel like he should stay on the outskirts, not get involved. 

But then Robin jumped over the back of the couch he was sitting on to land next to him gracefully. Conner just barely managed to not roll his eyes at the display. Trust Robin to never do anything like a normal person.

The Boy Wonder shifted to face the clone, but Conner kept his eyes glued to the TV. After a second which Conner assumed was Robin waiting for an acknowledgement that he wasn't going to get.

"Can you keep an eye on Danny for an hour or two?" That startled Conner out of his single-minded focus. He turned his attention to the teen next to him with both eyebrows raised in surprise.

"You want me to babysit your kid brother? Me?" He asked, trying to inject as much disbelief as he could in his tone. Robin smiled, wide and goofy, at the (physically) older teen.

"Yeah! Me and Bats have a mission in Gotham, our normal...sitter is out of town for the weekend, and we don't want to bring Danny because it's too dangerous and he still needs some training before going out in the field. His powers are under control but he needs to learn regulation, we don't want him overexerting himself like that ever again. Who knows what could happen." The smile disappeared in the last two sentences, the horror and fear and desperation he felt in those few minutes where he thought his long lost little brother was dead. Conner saw this shift in mood and let the heavy silence linger for a few seconds.

"Okay, but why me? Why not Megan or Artemis? Better yet, why not Kaldur? He's the most responsible out of all of us." Conner pointed out, fully expecting Robin to nod then leave.

He didn't do that.

"Conner, I chose you because I trust you. I really think you and he could bond, ya know, form a friendship. I know you've been having a hard time, I just think having a little company could help." There was something hidden behind his expression, a motive that Conner couldn't decipher. His jaw clenched as he forced down the distrust and indignant feeling at the (unintentional) implication that something was wrong with him.

"I don't know anything about how to take care of a kid, let alone a kid that has been through what he has. I barely even know what happened, what if I accidentally, I don't know, trigger him or something." Robin's smile returned, this time smaller and kinder.

"Trust me, Supes. Just talk to him, connect with him. Play with him. Keep him company. If something is seriously wrong, you can call me or Bats." Conner finally turned his attention back to the TV, but his mind kept wandering.

"Fine. I'll watch him." Robin perked in his spot.

"Thanks! We're leaving in an hour so Bats is gonna bring him by soon and give you any details you may have forgotten. Shouldn't take more than two hours but if it does we'll send you a message." Conner grunts in acknowledgement, but Robin wasn't discouraged at all at the monosyllabic answer. He jumped off the couch and ran out of the room, leaving Conner to stew in his worries and thoughts.

True to his word, Robin soon returned with Batman and his little brother in tow. The kid was in what he had heard the Boy Wonder refer to as his "ghost form." He was wearing an oversized black sweatshirt and baggy pajama pants with green cartoon ghosts on it. He was barefoot and his pure white hair was fluffed and untamable. He was perched on his guardian's hip, bright green eyes peering into Conner's blue ones curiously but without any fear, which was a stark contrast compared to how he acted around them before. Batman must be working with him on his fear of new people, because even though Conner has been around the kid he's never spent one-on-one time with him.

Batman set the kid onto his feet and nudged him towards the teen on the couch. It took a second but he eventually trotted over to the clone and crawled to sit next to him on the couch. He silently watched as Batman and Robin explained how long they would be gone once more and outlined a few important details then left. Soon enough, it was just Danny and Conner sitting in the silent sitting room in the mountain, the eleven year old looking up at the teen while Conner stared ahead at the now turned off TV.

As the silence stretched to almost an uncomfortable amount of time, Conner began to debate calling Megan to come help him, but then he remembered that she was currently off planet with her uncle. Looks like he's on his own. Clearing his throat, he tries to talk to the kid.

"So...how are you doing?" He cringes as soon as the words come out of his mouth. Danny tilted his head but didn't answer for a few seconds.

"Why are you lonely?" Conner blinks at the kid, shock temporarily taking away his ability to talk.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," he stuttered out.

"You don't talk to the others much, and when you are with them you seem...upset. Angry. There is no reason to feel alone yet you exhibit the mannerisms of someone uncomfortable with others but longs for connection. Why don't you like people?" The little boy explains. Conner once again blinks in shock. His jaw clenched and he took a deep breath through his nose. Weirdly enough, the confrontation and the blunt truths coming from the boy's accented voice didn't make him want to lash out like it would have coming from anyone else. For some weird reason...he felt almost like he could tell this kid and he would understand. For the life of him he couldn't figure out why he felt this, but his gut was urging him to talk to this kid. He didn't get a chance to before the kid was talking again, changing the subject without giving him a chance to answer the question.

"You're like me. Right?" Conner narrowed his eyes in confusion.

"What do you mean?" The boy looked up at him with wide green eyes but there was no hesitation and any trace of fear in that gaze dissipated. Conner had to remind himself that this was an eleven year old kid. His gaze may look decades older and his size and stature may look years younger, but he was eleven. From what he's been told, eleven year olds were just starting to like girls, or boys, and make friends and go to school. Eleven year olds were supposed to love video games and sports. They were supposed to do normal kid things. But...this kid will never get the opportunity to be normal.

"You were a lab rat. An experiment. Nothing but a tool to be honed and used and then discarded." His tone of voice was certain, like it was simply a fact not a tragedy. Conner could detect a hint of wistfulness. Conner absently noticed that he was speaking English a lot better, though there were a few mispronunciations due to his accent. Once the words registered, that anger that had been missing suddenly surged to the forefront of his mind as he went on the defensive. The teen forced it down, not wanting to yell at a kid who was (he thinks) reaching out.

"S-something like that." Danny nodded at his response. There was a small silence before another question was asked.

"How long?" Conner didn't botherasking for clarification. His jaw clenched again but he forced himself to answer for some reason.

"Sixteen weeks. The first sixteen weeks of my creation," Conner stared straight ahead, avoiding the boy. He could see in his peripheral as the Halfa nodded without any judgement. It didn't matter to the boy that his time in the lab lasted far longer, it didn't matter that he had probably been through worse, he was completely non judgemental and sympathetic.

"I was taken when I was four. I was young, I didn't speak any English but I could understand it perfectly." He paused, the first sign of hesitation, but eventually Danny continued. Conner looked down at the kid who was now leaning into his side.

"They had to break me first. Unlike you, who was created in the lab and therefore didn't know any better, I was smart and well developed for my age and I had three years of life outside of the facility and all of that meant I knew what was normal, how I was supposed to be treated. Most of all, I knew that what they were doing was wrong. And what does any kid do when they think something is wrong? They throw tantrums." Horror quickly overtook the anger and unease he had been feeling, the horror only growing when a small, almost nostalgic smile bloomed on the boy's face. Danny looked tired, almost as exhausted as he looked after fighting with Pariah Dark. Conner, desperate to get that distant smile off his face, did something he hasn't done in all of his time on earth.

He offered up some of his own memories.

"I didn't question them often," the teen started, in the same low voice as Danny had. He didn't elaborate on who 'they' were, and the hybrid didn't pry, "I didn't know any better so there wasn't any reason to question them. But that didn't really stop me from asking why, especially when I got closer to being fully developed. I asked why I was created, why I needed to do this test or that. They didn't like questions, so I got punished for every question. I learned very quickly that it was unacceptable to probe." Danny nodded, as if it was normal and they were talking about some TV show, not being brutally punished for simply asking questions. Conner, as horrible as this conversation was making him feel, relaxed into the couch. The feeling of sadness and anger was mixing with content and relief. For the first time ever, he felt a connection that he could only ever observe in others. He felt camaraderie and he felt understood.

Who knew that the eleven year old, half-dead Romanian brother to Batman's protégé would be the only being that he could share his experiences with?

"It took me three days, one hour, and seven minutes for me to finally wake up and not expect to see my room. It took me that long to wake up and not be surprised, or disappointed, at the sight of the dark and damp cement walls of the cell. It took me that long to accept that where I was, where I was kept would be my room for the foreseeable future, possibly forever. I couldn't tell at the time how I should feel. It felt like a huge step backward. I had been adamant on escaping, getting out and leaving it all behind me as a bad memory. I had questioned them, I had made snide remarks, insulted them. It didn't matter to me that they had no idea what I was saying, it didn't matter to them that they had no idea what I was saying. But at that moment, it was like I fundamentally changed and on some level accepted that what they were doing to me was what I deserved. What was meant to be." Conner swallowed and looked at his lap.

"What kind of tests did they do?" Conner asked, then realized how sensitive that subject may be so he quickly continued talking, "when I was first created, and was young, it was mostly endurance. But the mild stuff, they would test my limits. Make me run or fly or submerge me in water or whatever until I can't handle it. They would make me look through things until my eyes bled and I would have to hold lasers until the areas around my eyes were burnt and raw. But as I got older they focused on raising my endurance. My pain tolerance, they would force the tests to go on longer. I would pass out most of the time." He stopped, not quite ready to explain in any more detail what he was forced to go through. Luckily, it seemed to be enough to the boy who had no such qualms about laminated details of his capture.

"It started small, but to me it was the worst they could do, but I was so wrong. They began with small things. They would give me shots, which hurt and made me feel bad. Sometimes I would have a reaction, like I remember the first shot I had made my throat close. I hadn't known at the time that I didn't need to breathe as much as humans so I started choking, trying to scream but I couldn't. Immediately after that test they strapped me to a chair and forced me to look at a screen, if I looked away they would stab me in the side with an electric rod. The rod was their favorite form of immediate punishment, the prolonged punishments usually were in the form of tests lasting even longer than normal. The screen, I don't even remember what was on it, made me vomit then I had a grand-mal seizure. When I woke up they threw me back into my cell. I was there for only a night before they pulled me out and did more tests. At the beginning, they would do simple things but maximize the humiliation in the hope that I would resign myself to being nothing but the test subject they saw me as. They would drag me around with a leash, they would chain me to the table or whatever surface I was on when it was unnecessary. But after three days, one hour, and seven minutes, I guess I stopped fighting. I...gave up. The leash and chaining went away most of the time. They would keep it on when I was alone or there was a test they didn't need my powers for, but they stopped leading me and pinning me down. The punishment eased back, but the tests increased in intensity. The shots still happened, and I had a few more seizures, some grand-mal, some absences, I even had a myoclonic seizure once. I guess they wanted to measure my brain waves and how my healing factor reacted to the electric stimulus a seizure induces. I don't know, I had kind of stopped caring why they did what they did. But they began with the tank, it's this small saltwater tank. I would be submerged for hours in a pitch black room, by the end I would be gasping for breath even though I didn't need to breathe as much. I couldn't be touched without screaming, which made the pain worse because my hearing was extra sensitive. Everything was extra sensitive, and I have enhanced senses so that made it nearly unbearable. Then there were the endurance tests. And finally there was the training. And after one year, forty weeks, six days and ten minutes, they started dissections." Conner listened in horrified silence. The wistful and nostalgic smile was back on his face and in his tone. There was a long silence before Danny spoke up once again. Conner was almost afraid to hear what he was going to say next.

"Were you alone?" The boy asked, still staring in the distance, "I wasn't. Well, I was the only one with this much attention and this much testing, but it wasn't like I was locked away the entire time. The Bad Men saw me as less than human, non-sentient, but still a little more than an object. I was treated exactly as they described, a lab rat, and even lab rats need exercise and positive reinforcement. It didn't happen often, but sometimes they would let me and the others out into the yard. I met a few others, they were all ghosts. Youngblood, he was about my age in appearance when we first met. He liked to play pirate. There was also Ember, she was about nineteen and kept talking about how her boyfriend would get her out. She disappeared by the second time was allowed out, the first one I saw leave. I wonder what happened to her. There was also a girl named Kitty. She was very beaten down, quiet, but I don't think she was always like that. She seemed like the peppy, quirky type. I think there were others but I never met them. Ghosts were in and out, by the time I had my third and final time in the yard, they were all gone." Conner shook his head lightly.

"I was based on a previous experiment gone wrong so they were obsessed with ensuring there were no flaws. I was isolated except for three G-nomes, but they weren't for company. They were to control my thoughts. They were introduced after I began questioning them. I had no autonomy." Danny nodded again, his white hair rubbing against Conner's bare arm. The teen hesitantly lifted it to drape over the almost fragile body and Danny adjusted to cuddle closer to the source of warmth. Superboy had to push down a shiver at the cold seeping from the kid's skin but despite his best efforts, Danny obviously noticed and changed to his human form, which was wearing the same thing as his ghost form. Conner had to look away from the bright light but he definitely noticed that the kid got warmer. Still cold, but it wasn't as bad as before. Neither asked any more questions, nor did they talk. They just sat there, in comfortable but melancholy silence, leaning on each other for support. Conner felt, for the first time, complete content. There was no anger or sadness or longing brewing just below the skin. There was no confusion or hatred or lust for revenge. This small child, who wasn't even his species, managed to help him. Connect to him. Conner felt a small smile bloom on his face and when Conner looked at the kid, there was a smile there too. It wasn't the heartbreaking nostalgic smile of someone remembering the wrongs done to them, it was a happy smile that told of a better future. Conner turned his head forwards and let it fall back onto the back of the sofa.

And just like that, the two lab rats found solace in their connected traumas.

Thanks for reading!

~gbuttersnaps


End file.
